Our View

I sit in the newsroom and reflect on the 200-something stories I’ve written this year.
Christmas songs play on the radio, which only picks up one station.
I hear the clicks on keyboards from reporters typing holiday stories about recycled Christmas decorations, a food drive, a Santa truck, embroidered ornaments.

I stand on the porch with six homeless men.
They’re chatting, smoking cigarettes, picking on the youngest guy in the group about his rapping skills.
And I’m taking it all in – writing notes, snapping photos, listening to their stories.
Ten men are staying in a home on Trestle Lane, part of Lancaster’s old mill hill. They’re in a 90-day program organized by the nonprofit Citadel House, and they’re trying to get back on their feet.
I’ve seen poor people before.

Ernest Finney, former chief justice of the S.C. Supreme Court, died Sunday at his home in Columbia. He was 86.
Finney, a Virginia native, was a hero in the state’s judicial community, a well-known legislator and accomplished civil-rights attorney. He broke racial barriers throughout his life, becoming a Supreme Court justice in 1985 and chief justice in 1994, the first African-American to hold those positions since Reconstruction.

I can’t stop thinking about the 11th paragraph of a Nov. 8 story on our front page.
A 44-year-old Lancaster man was accused of trying to break in on his estranged wife, screaming that he would dismember her and a fellow she was with. He had arrived with a .38 revolver, a knife, an axe, a metal baton and a set of throwing knives, according to the incident report.
In the 11th graph, the suspect told the arresting deputy: “I could have come over here with my AK-47 and AR-15 and… nobody would have had a chance.”

On Monday, Oct. 16, Linda Blackmon called this newspaper and asked to speak to Publisher Susan Rowell, my boss. It was the morning after my column about the new Lancaster City Council member taking a vote that clearly violated state ethics law.
Susan wasn’t in, so Blackmon asked to speak to me. When I answered, she identified herself cordially and said she wanted to come by the newspaper later that day to talk to me and reporter Mark Manicone, who had been writing news articles about her.
Fine, I said. When would you like to come?

Editor’s note: This occasional column takes you behind the scenes with Hannah Strong, who has been reporting for a little more than a year.

The bench outside the Lancaster County Courthouse lets me see who’s coming in and going out.
It’s a summer afternoon in August 2016 and I wait – impatiently.
There’s a private hearing going on inside that I can’t legally witness.
I finally see who I’m looking for after a 30-minute wait.
I recognize her big, blonde hair from an online photo.

It has been a whiplashing few weeks in the drama of Linda Blackmon’s return to the Lancaster City Council.
Just before she took the oath Oct. 1, a house that she owns burned, and she postulated that it was an assassination attempt to keep her out of office.
“I believe someone tried to kill me,” said Blackmon, angry and in tears on the sidewalk as SLED agents combed the fire scene. “You want to run for office, you want to have a dream, you know? But people are against it.”

If you told me six years ago that I’d become a reporter, fall in love with a country girl and live in good ole’ South Carolina, I’d have said ease up on the psychedelics.
Yet here I am, with all of the above turning out to be true.
God must be punishing me for my cynicism as a Northerner.
I currently live in Columbia and commute to Lancaster. But I have bought a house in Lancaster’s Erwin Farm neighborhood and will be closing on the sale today.
I am not an S.C. native, but I don’t plan on leaving – ever.

Editor’s note: Susan Rowell last week became president of the National Newspaper Association, which represents community newspapers nationwide. Here are excerpts of her acceptance speech at the NNA’s annual convention in Tulsa, Okla.

I am beyond honored to join this group of individuals who have led the National Newspaper Association to where we are today. Over 2,000 members strong, representing communities from the East Coast to the West Coast.